Jesus Christ Rising from the Dead

THE SACRED MEMORY OF JESUS CHRIST RISING FROM THE DEAD.

The sacred memory of Jesus Christ rising from the dead

[1] This is the day which the Lord made and which, from his triumph, he willed to be called the Lord's Day. This day Jesus Christ our Lord made with great labor and with the preceding shedding of his blood and the most bitter death of his cross, The Day of the Resurrection, full of triumph, rising on the third day: and as unconquered and most powerful King of glory, gloriously triumphing over death, the devil, and the Jews, by his victory he won immortal glory and perpetual joy for himself and for us. On this day, therefore, let us exult and rejoice, and congratulate Christ our Redeemer, singing the joyful Alleluia. Whatever day of whatever month it may first have been, it is a day of gladness and triumph: concerning which, as we did on the twenty-fifth of March when we celebrated the sacred memory of Christ dying on the cross, we have determined to bring forward on this day, the twenty-seventh of March, a few testimonies, especially from the most ancient Martyrologies: referred by most authorities to March 27, since, as the Venerable Bede testifies, it is established by the opinion of many Ecclesiastical Doctors that Christ rose on the sixth day before the Kalends of April: which Bridfert the Englishman confirms in his glosses on Bede, adducing the authority of St. Jerome testifying in his Martyrology that the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was celebrated at Jerusalem on the sixth before the Kalends of April.

[2] In the most ancient Martyrologies We have four copies of this Martyrology attesting the same mystery to us: of these, the Corbie copy printed at Paris and the Blume manuscript have the following: "The sixth before the Kalends of April, at Jerusalem, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ." These are read in plainly the same arrangement of words in the Martyrology of Rabanus and in the very ancient manuscripts of Rinovia in Swabia, Reichenau in Switzerland, St. Mary ad Gradus at Cologne, and another of Cardinal Barberini. But "at Jerusalem" is written, with the remaining words unchanged, in the other Barberini manuscript, the Liege manuscript of St. Lambert, the Trier manuscript of St. Maximin, in the printed Bede and Molanus, and partly in Ado as published by Mosander and the Appendix of Rosweyde. In the copy of our Hieronymian Martyrology, which was written in Anglo-British script nearly a thousand years ago, it reads thus: "The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus at Jerusalem." The same, but with the word "Jerusalem" placed first, is found in Notker and in the Brussels manuscript of St. Gudula, the smaller but older Trier manuscript of St. Maximin, and that of the Queen of Sweden composed in Franconia. "According to the flesh" is added in the Centula and Florarium manuscripts. In the Lucca copy of St. Jerome and the Prague manuscript the following is found: "At Jerusalem, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ." In the manuscript of St. Cyriacus, highly commended by Baronius, "the Resurrection is celebrated at Jerusalem." But with the place omitted, the same Resurrection of the Lord is recorded in the very ancient manuscripts of the Vatican of St. Peter's, the Altemps, the Monte Cassino, the Augsburg of St. Ulrich, the Paris of Labbe, the Arras, the Utrecht of St. Mary, the Tournai of St. Martin, the Trier also of St. Martin, the Cologne of the Carmelites, the Liege of St. Lawrence, and that of the Queen of Sweden. To which Wandelbert adds his vote with this verse:

"The sixth shines with the triumph of the Lamb rising."

[3] Moreover, all the ancient Fathers who place the Passion of the Lord on the eighth day before the Kalends of April by others assigned to March 25 and 28, necessarily refer his Resurrection to the sixth before the Kalends. Some, however, join the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Resurrection to the eighth day before the Kalends of April: thus the Greeks in the printed Menaia, Ado in the Queen of Sweden manuscript, and the more ancient Gallic Bishops and with them St. Martin of Dumio, and in particular the Synod of Caesarea in Palestine, celebrated near the end of the second century, is cited in support of this. But the fifth day before the Kalends of April, or the twenty-eighth of March, is established as the day of the Lord's Resurrection by Maurolycus, Panvinio, and others. Some also believe the Resurrection occurred on the first or fifth day of April, April 1 and 5. but without any testimony from the Martyrologies, as those arguments were set forth on the twenty-fifth of March. For the rest, as we said then about Christ crucified for the salvation of the world, these glorious mysteries of the same Jesus Christ rising are most well known throughout the Christian world to all Christians, The mystery of the Resurrection explained everywhere by all. and are explained in the most sacred Gospels and the other books of the New Testament, in the Oracles of the Prophets of the Old Law, in whole libraries of homilies and treatises of the ancient Fathers, and in entire volumes of later writers: by which this most exalted trophy of our faith is adorned. Since these are available everywhere, lest we do what has already been done, we omit them here.